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‘Eat Right for Your Type’ by Peter J. D’Adamo has become widely known as the blood type diet. Since I am constantly asked to give my input on this dieting system, I have decided to add my comments here.

I agree with and respect quite a few of D’Adamo’s insights and perspectives but have major reservations about others. The book suggests that you use your blood type to determine which foods you should be eating. According to the theory, when you eat foods that ‘agree’ with your blood type, you reduce the risk of cancer, heart disease, diabetes, infections and liver disease. Type A people supposedly had ancestors that were farmers. If you are of this type, you should be a vegetarian and avoid meat and dairy products. According to the author, people with Type B blood had ancestors that were nomads; therefore they should eat red meat and fish. Those with Type O blood had ancestors that were hunters and gatherers; this means they should eat lots of animal protein and few carbohydrates. Finally, those with Type AB blood, had mixed ancestry, and are supposed to eat a combination of the Type A and B diet. Does this mean, for example, that all nomads used to have the blood type 0, and all farmers used to have type A blood? What about people who didn’t farm and who didn’t move from place to place?

Unfortunately, these theories are not supported by scientific literature, traditional knowledge and records of the world’s oldest medical systems, such as Chinese Medicine and Ayurveda. D’Adamo’s discoveries have not been confirmed anywhere else. There is little or no distinction made between individuals who have lived in the Andes, the tropical rain forests, or plains of Africa for hundreds of thousands of years. The Indian subcontinent thrived and flourished for thousands of years on a vegetarian diet, and so has most of the world’s population. And where does ancestry begin anyway? Two thousand years ago, 100 centuries ago, or 60 million years ago? How far do we go in the bloodline of our ancestors to determine our dietary needs? When the last Ice Age began, many vegetarians living in formerly tropical lands were suddenly forced to eat animals in order to survive. Some ate a mixed diet, because of more moderate climates. Others in the all-year-round tropical places of the Earth continued with vegetarian foods until quite recently. The proposed theory is highly inconclusive about all of these facts.

When I went on the high protein diet (very similar to the type O diet plan) at age 5, I felt great for about 18 months, as do so many others who go on the popular Atkins diet. Then I started developing stones in my liver, a dangerous arrhythmia and juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, among other diseases. I had no idea that these ailments were due to protein poisoning. Ten years later I switched to a balanced vegan diet, and most of my illnesses went away within a matter of weeks. However, I still had to live with the many stones that had been produced in my liver and gallbladder as a result of what is known today as the O-type blood diet. Forty gallbladder attacks later, I did a series of liver and gallbladder flushes, which cleaned out these vital organs. Finally, I was free of any illness or discomfort.

You won’t notice the effects of a high protein diet until the blood vessel walls are well-thickened with excessive protein. Eating lots of animal protein triggers a powerful immune response in order to get rid of the foreign DNA and the dead, coagulated and damaged protein of meat, fish, eggs, poultry and dairy products. This immune response involves a powerful release of energy, thereby cleaning out impurities, improving skin functions and making you feel more grounded. However, as soon as the immune system is exhausted by the constant excessive activity, which took a mere 18 months in my case, the situation begins to backfire and the body becomes increasingly congested.

The blood type diet theory is flawed in the sense that it does not recognize the basic body type requirements generated by the three forces/humors of nature (Vata, Pitta and Kapha) that control the physicality of matter and the body of humans and animals. Only a fraction of the body’s energy requirements are met through food, and there are many more influences on the body than one’s blood type. The 6,000-year old medical system of Ayurveda accounts for most of these influences. One’s constitutional body type is not as simply and easily determined as one’s blood type. The theory of blood type foods is really based on guesswork, not on science or time-tested traditional knowledge as found in Ayurveda, Chinese Medicine, Greek medicine or ancient Egyptian medicine.

If concentrated protein foods were a necessary part of the human diet, as the blood type diet advocates for the O-type, for example, why does nature not reflect that need when it formulates human milk in a mother’s breast? Its protein content is a mere trace amount of 1.1-1.6 percent, provided to a baby at the time of its biggest growth spurt. Wouldn’t O-type babies die if they lived on so little protein for up to 18 months, since most babies in the natural world only get mother’s milk as food? On the contrary, the babies actually develop perfect organs and systems, and are emotionally the most content. If nature’s most perfect food doesn’t give you much protein at the time when you are growing more rapidly than at any other time in your life, why would you need to eat concentrated proteins, such as meat, when you are older and no longer growing?

If you are on the blood type diet and decide to continue following it, I recommend that you be vigilant about how your body feels. If you start feeling a dull sensation in your gallbladder or pain in your joints, muscles or head, or if you develop mucus and sinus problems, a coated tongue or other signs of congestion, you may need to reconsider your dietary regimen.

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This is an excerpt from my book TIMELESS SECRETS OF HEALTH & REJUVENATION

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This is a question about, with regard to, my book “DIABETES, NO MORE!” On page 32 it says “See your body type food list” and he is asking where is that list and what body types are there?

I have discussed the entire topic of body types, the different Ayurvedic body types… Ayurveda is the oldest system of medicine evolved… in my book “TIMELESS SECRETS OF HEALTH AND REJUVENATION“. It is a very comprehensive book and I highly recommend you read particularly chapters 3,4,5 and 6 which will go into that topic very carefully and in a detailed way which will allow you to get an understanding of what body types are and why different foods are suitable for different body types, why certain body types are more prone to certain illnesses and other body types to other illnesses, if they do certain things such as eating foods that are not compatible with the body type, the body will react and develop certain health conditions, for example the kapha body type, K-A-P-H-A, kapha body types should be very cautious with certain kinds of food that have a sweet effect once they are ingested, that does not mean necessarily sugar, that means there are certain kinds of food that have a sweet after-effect that then can cause the insulin resistance that we know as diabetes. And there are body types that react in a very different way if ingested with the same foods and they would not develop the same kind of problem, so, it is very good to get a complete understanding. There is a way how to test it out, there is a questionnaire in the book where you can determine your own body type so that you can learn about the characteristics of the body types, why you are a certain way and why there is not one food that is suitable for every single person because we are different, we have different combinations of elements in our system that make us different, the basic three body types are VATA, PITTA and KAPHA, but, there can be combinations of them such as pitta-vata, vata-pitta, kapha-pitta and so on.

So I highly recommend that you look at these chapters and get a better understanding about the body types that allows you to really understand the field of natural health much, much more quickly and better and then sort of questioning all kinds of things that come along. There is lot of health advice that is generalized for all the people like ‘this is good for everyone’ and this is not really how it works, it is a very individual thing… health advice should always be dedicated to one’s body type and not just generalized.

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This is a question from Matt Leslie and, he is reading through my book “TIMELESS SECRETS OF HEALTH AND REJUVENATION” and he was hoping I would help him to answer a couple of questions. The first one is: How do you know your body type? I find it that I posses qualities from each of the types. None seems to fit better than the others? And this is a question that I personally probably would not be able to answer directly, to tell you what body type you are, without getting a good image of you and knowing a couple of more details about you personally . A good ayurvedic physician would be able to determine which, what, body type you are.

The thing is that oftentimes we get confused over what kind of body type we are ‘Vata’, ‘Pitta’ or ‘Kapha’ or, what combination thereof, because, we do not quite understand the symptoms that we are concerned with. For example, a person with a vata-pitta body type, that means there is more vata in him than the pitta, the person may have diarrhea for some reason, loose stools, and he thinks that he is a pitta type. In reality he is a vata type with a pitta imbalance.

So the imbalance is stronger than the actual body type characteristics. So in that case he will have to deal with the pitta imbalance first and once that has been corrected then you will, the person will, recognize himself as a vatha body type. That means vatha is dominating and pitha is secondary. likewise a person who has a, for example a vatha- kapha person, where vata and kapha are seem to be pronounced very strongly that the person suffers from constipation on the one hand, and also from sinus congestion and mucus aggravation in the throat and the chest. So the person being a vata-kapha type, has a kapha imbalance perhaps and by dealing with the kapha imbalance, simply by reducing certain kapha increasing foods or mucus aggravating foods like ice-cream and sugar and dairy products, then, the person would have a more clearer idea of what body type he really is.

So once the symptom of imbalance has been removed, then the person will know what body type he is. And this applies to you as well. So I would suggest you deal with the underlying issues or conditions that you are having, and then when you will do the test again you will find that it becomes much more clear what body type you actually are.

The second question deals with raw garlic and raw onion.

In the book I mentioned that they are not very good for human consumption. You are saying that you squeeze raw garlic on every salad that you eat. Garlic is actually a poison, that is why the Italians soldiers who were not very good shooters during World War II, they were not very good at aiming at the enemy, they were putting, smearing garlic on the bullets that they put in their guns and then, they shot at the enemy and hopefully they hit the enemy somewhere, maybe at the leg, and the enemy soldiers died simply by the garlic entering the blood stream and killing the person. So garlic is a very-very strong toxin and that’s why it can kill a lot germs, bacteria and fungi. So this is something that gives rise to some benefits for the time being.

I am not a great fan of killing germs because you leaving behind a huge number, billions of, corpses of dead bacteria that you then need to dispose of, which can then attract other bacteria into the body that were not designed to come in. So it a double edged sword. I personally do not want to expose my body to a strong toxin like raw onion and raw garlic. If you cook them, then the toxicity is reduced by a great deal.

So I would recommend that if you do want them then, do not eat it raw, but cook them. Otherwise there are studies now to show that garlic, in fact, can destroy brain cells and it can also burn little holes into the intestinal wall. So it can burn. You eat raw garlic and it burns your throat. It has an inflammation inducing effect if there is too much close contact with some of the delicate lining of the intestine. So I personally recommend, particularly, for people who have digestive problems who may suffer from a condition called leaky blood where these kind of toxins can enter the blood stream and can cause problems elsewhere in the body.

The third question that you raised is related to Candida, why would fermented cabbage be bad for you?

This is in relation to, again, people who suffer, who are of a particular body type, who suffer from a pitta imbalance. Pitta people, or people suffering from a pitta imbalance, do not benefit from fermented foods which are very sour and, the sour taste can impact the immune system and reduce their ability to digest food. So for them taking fermented foods including vinegar, can have a detrimental effect.

So once again it depends on who you are. If you are a vata type who in addition suffers from constipation then yes, I do not have a problem recommending fermented cabbage because it will help to open up the bowel and help to increase the population of probiotic bacteria. So if you have had any benefit from eating fermented cabbage, by all means go for it; as long as you feel good, it will do you good. But if a person is a pitta type, it is unlikely that you would feel good and you would start getting loose stools and feel that there is something that is not quite right, you might feel bloated, gassy and, in fact, this is the case then I would certainly recommend not taking fermented food.

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